super-wingpanel

I’m a big fan of elementary OS. Paraphrasing from their design philosophy, elementary OS offers a concise, simple interface that avoids configuration in an effort to get out of your way so that you can get things done. This is great, except when you want to configure something a little differently. Enter super-wingpanel. Super-wingpanel is a drop-in replacement for elementary’s standard top panel (called wingpanel). It adds a number of features that build on my previous work with wingpanel-slim. If you’re not convinced yet, I’ve included a list of the specific features super-wingpanel adds at the bottom of this post.

If you’re new to linux, installing and configuring super-wingpanel is a little bit more technical than some of the other modifications you can make to elementary OS. That said, I’ll do my best to walk you through it.

Installation

First we need to add the super-wingpanel PPA. PPA stands for Personal Packaged Archive. It allows people who are not a part of the elementary project to publish software in the software center. One of the major benefits of adding a PPA versus simply downloading an app from a website is that PPAs are integrated into elementary’s software update system. This makes it easy to ensure you always get the latest features. The super-wingpanel PPA can be added to your system by opening the Terminal application and entering the following command

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:heathbar/super-wingpanel

Next we need to install the app. This can be done through the software center, or since you already have the terminal open, the following commands will do the same thing.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install super-wingpanel

Now that super-wingpanel is installed, we need to modify our system to use it instead of the standard wingpanel. The easiest way is by using elementary tweaks. If you haven’t installed this piece of software already, you definitely should. Installation instructions can be found here. Tweaks can be opened by launching the System Settings app and selecting Tweaks.

Once you have Tweaks open, click on the Cerbere tab on the left. Cerbere is the part of elementary OS that makes sure some of the important parts of the operating system are running. It watches the processes (programs) in the list and if for any reason they quit working, Cerbere will re-start them. You’ll notice wingpanel is listed. Double click to edit it and change it to super-wingpanel.

Finally, log out and log back in and you will be using super-wingpanel. Alternatively, if you’ve still got the Terminal app open, you can simply type:

killall wingpanel && super-wingpanel &

Configuration

Unlike wingpanel-slim, super-wingpanel doesn’t have a convenient interface to modify its settings. At the time of this writing, if you want to modify super-wingpanel’s settings (which is why you installed it, right?), you’ll need to use dconf-editor. You can install dconf-tools from the software center or by entering the following command in the Termianal

sudo apt-get install dconf-tools

Once dconf-editor is installed and open, navigate to org.pantheon.desktop.super-wingpanel by clicking the little triangles to expand each section

Features

launcher-text-override – don’t like the “Applications” nomenclature? This setting allows you to over write the text of the Applications button.

indicator-order – want the sound menu on the far right? This setting allows you to modify how indicators are ordered.

show-window-controls – when windows are maximized, the close and maximize button are displayed in the panel. This feature works best in conjunction with maximus.

hide-mode – allows you to have the panel hide in various ways, including my favorite Intellislim: slim when you need it, not when you don’t.

slim mode – This is the same as wingpanel-slim, but with more features. For the uninitiated, this setting allows the panel to shrink to the smallest possible width which allows windows to be displayed on the topmost part of your screen, ultimately making more room for your stuff

slim-panel-edge – allows you to select the edge shape of the slim panel

slim-panel-position – allows you to specify where you want the slim panel to be positioned

slim-panel-margin – allows you to specify the number of pixels the panel stays from the edge of the screen in Elementary Left and Elementary Right modes to allow for non-standard window control configurations

slim-panel-separate-launcher – allows you to choose whether the Applications button is a separate panel on the left, or if it is placed in the slim panel next to the date/time.

23 thoughts on “super-wingpanel”

mp19uy

First of all, thank you for wingpanel-slim and now super-wingpanel.
I wanted to know if it’s possible to set the position to bottom?
I’ve tried using elementary tweaks and the dconf editor but there isn’t any bottom option available.

Could you point me out what parameter in what config file should I modify what prameter in order to get the pannel at the bottom? (or just let me know if it’s not possible to do that by the momment.)

Thanks for the quick response. Looking at it – I think the guake behavior is probably fine. It might actually look weird to have the top edge of the terminal originate seemingly from air when in slim mode.

So it’s really just the OSDs.

Unfortunately, the patched notifyosd/libnotify + configurator from a few releases back doesn’t seem to work anymore (at least not on my elementary build) which is the only way I’ve ever seen to adjust those.

Checked out super-wingpanel today and found it quite nice. I liked the inteli-* features but wasn’t happy with how gala was dealing with the docks when switching workspaces. Here is a patch that should apply to gala HEAD that fixes the panel on workspace switches so it tweens statically and then hides/shrinks/expands once the workspace switch is done. Hope it helps someone out. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/736509/Elementary/consistent_workspace_switch.diff

Hello,
first of all, thanks for your great work!
A question, however:
Could you please clarify how syntax for the “indicator-order” setting in dconf works?
I’ve tinkered with it for quite a while but I didn’t understand it. I’m not sure what those “lib*.so” entries are. I only know indicators by their package name (“indicator-power”, “nm-applet”, and so on, and other non-system apps).
Thanks in advance!

Hey I tried using super-wingpanel in eOS Freya. It is poorly implemented at this point and being that Freya is new and still in beta I totally understand. I would love to be using eOS right now but this issue prevents me from enjoying it as I would want to. Are there plans for updating wingpanel-slim for Freya in the near future? Thanks in advance.

Firstly thanks a lot for super-wingpanel – it made Elementary Luna great to use.

I read above that you have no plans to update super-wingpanel for Freya, and for me that is a source of great disappointment and regret.

I have installed Freya and as much as I like nearly everything about it I just really hate having a panel at the top of the screen, so if it is at all possible I (and I’m sure many others) would really love you forever if you could reconsider your decision and do super-wingpanel or wingpanel-slim for Freya.

Of course I do understand if you are unable or unwilling to, and that of course is your freedom to choose, but if the reason for not updating it for Freya is because you think there is no demand for it I am sure that I am not the only one who would really appreciate it.

Thanks for the support, as I have described above I really don’t think there is a good use case for a slim panel in Freya. I know auto-hide is a highly requested feature, but I don’t have the time/desire to add this to Freya’s wingpanel. There is a bounty, so if it’s really important to you, throw some money at it: https://www.bountysource.com/issues/955498-add-optional-hide-mode

No, a petition would not help. The primary feature of super-wingpanel was the slim-mode. Freya brought changes to the toolbars/titlebars such that a slim panel would cover useful functionality. The only other highly requested feature is auto-hide which I believe there is a bounty for already.

Which changes were brought by Freya? For me Freya’s wingpanel is exactly the same as Luna’s. I couldn’t find any way to make it slim or any other options to tweak it except the background alpha.

I’m very sad you’re dropping super wingpanel, it would be great have it working in Freya… Now there is absolutely no option to stock wingpanel… I’ve read the super-wingpanel sources but I don’t have any skills in GTK and Vala (my program skill is better in Qt/C++/Python) =(

July 21, 2015

headfish

i installed elementary os freya, i try to install super-wingpanel but i can’t

super-wingpanel : Depends: libgranite1 (>= 0.2.0~) but it is not installable
Recommends: indicator-me but it is not installable
In any case, it looks like an abandoned project…